The present invention relates in general to a system for recording vehicle trip distance and in particular to a system that records trip distance under operator-defined categories.
Motor vehicles operators often manually record the date, purpose and distance of each trip taken. Trips taken for business purposes are often charged to clients or expensed for income tax purposes at a set rate per mile. However, an operator may forget to record a trip and may make errors in recording odometer readings or computing distance driven.
A vehicle distance recorder monitors vehicle movement and provides a printed record of distance traveled. U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,832 issued Jul. 5, 1988 to Gulas et al illustrates a prior art distance recorder that permits an operator to designate whether each trip is for personal or business purposes. At the start of a trip an operator presses either a front panel pushbutton marked "P" (personal) or a pushbutton marked "B" (business). The Gulas et al recorder thereafter monitors rotation of a vehicle's speedometer cable to determine the distance the vehicle moves. On completion of the trip, the recorder prints out a record of the distance traveled together with an indication of whether the operator designated the trip as business or personal. The recorder also stores in memory a record of all trips taken during a period of operator-selected duration and may on command of the operator print out a record of all such trips or a summary of miles driven during such period under each of the two allowable categories.
While the Gulas et al recorder is particularly useful for operators needing only to keep track of trips under the two predetermined categories (business and personal), the record provided by the recorder is less satisfactory for an operator wishing to more precisely identify the purpose of each trip. For example, when an operator wishes to charge various business trips to separate clients, the operator would not be able to determine from the printed record which "business" trip should be charged to each client.